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​BLOG BY GRACE C. YOUNG ﻿﻿

The MIT campus paper I wrote for as an undergrad, The Tech, is re-doing its website, so I thought it was a good time to revisit and compile my articles from back in the day. I wrote quite a bit as a staff writer and Arts Editor (and now I miss having a press pass to cultural events!). Next academic year I'm hoping to do some freelance arts writing for other publications; if anyone has ideas, please let me know. Meanwhile, feel free to browse the archive below.

With the popular hastag #ILookLikeAnEngineer, it was a sweet surprise to see my sister Isabel's article (below). When I began in robotics, there were no girls involved at my school. Studies now show having role models in science and engineering that shatter stereotypes can be powerful for young girls who may be thinking about math, science, and engineering.

Many thanks to all those who attended the exhibit opening yesterday! Over 130 people attended, we had plenty of chocolate from Waggoner Chocolates, and I'd say it was a success! Getting plenty of positive feedback, but also looking forward to revising the exhibit slightly so that it can travel. Photos from Chris Welch Photography. Thanks again to everyone!

The exhibit will be up through January 31st. It features photos and videos of marine animal behavior never before captured in slow motion. All filming was possible thanks to new technology, including the Edgertronic high speed camera, bright underwater lights, and an underwater housing. Most footage was captured during Fabien Cousteau’s Mission 31 last summer when five fellow aquanauts and I lived underwater and filmed with the camera for 15 days from the Aquarius underwater habitat off the Florida Keys. In addition, the exhibit showcases follow up studies on cuttlefish's color-changing skin and seal whisker dynamics.

Note: The reception was previously planned for Sunday, January 4th, but is now on the 9th. The exhibit will still be open on the 4th, however, so if that's the only day you can attend just message me and I'll still give a tour.

Finally, if you are a blog-reader who didn't hop on the KickStarter bus but still want to attend the opening, send me a message and I'll get you an invite :))

Using cutting edge technology not really meant for the ocean was tricky! I'm the one filming upside down. It was easier to see the screen that way (and oddly comfortable underwater). Our photography will be featured in an art exhibit at MIT.

Bringing the camera close to a mantis shrimp in the sand while filming with the Edgertronic camera.

"Thanks to a couple of engineers at MIT, we were able to use a prototype camera called the Edgertronic to capture slow-motion video... And that particular camera gives us an insight into what fairly common animals do but we can't even see it in the blink of an eye. ... It gives us an insight into some of the animals that we were sitting right next to for 31 days and never normally would have paid attention to, such as hermit crabs."

"Using a cutting-edge piece of technology that's not really meant for the oceans is not always easy. We sometimes had to put the camera upside down, cordon it back to the lab, and actually man the trigger from the lab itself. But what this gives us is the foresight to look at and analyze in scientific and engineering terms some of the most amazing behavior that the human eye just can't pick up, such as this manta shrimp trying to catch its prey, within about .3 seconds. That punch is as strong as a .22 caliber bullet, and if you ever try to catch a bullet in mid-flight with your eye, impossible. But now we can see things such as these Christmas tree worms pulling in and fanning out in a way that the eye just can't capture, or in this case, a fish throwing up grains of sand. This is an actual sailfin goby, and if you look at it in real time, it actually doesn't even show its fanning motion because it's so quick."

"What I learned from spending 31 days underwater" was the title of Fabien Cousteau's TED talk this month in Rio de Janeiro about Mission 31. My focus on the mission, high speed filming with the Edgertronic camera, is featured from 7:00-9:04. Click here to watch!

From the transcript:

Fellow aquanaut Liz and I adjusting scientific equipment over a barrel sponge on the reef.

Fabien summarizes the mission's goals and accomplishments, and stresses the need for further exploration of the oceans.

AND, Photo Art EXHIBIT OPENING SOON!

I'm also excited to say my KickStarter campaign to fund an exhibit of the underwater slow motion photography we shot on the Edgertronic from Mission 31 was a great success! Those near Boston are welcome to attend the opening on the evening of January 4th in MIT's Wiesner Art Gallery. Just shoot me a message for the details.

I just launched a KickStarter campaign to help fund an exhibit of underwater high speed photography from Mission 31 and continued work. It'll be at the MIT Wiesner Art Gallery all of January if the campaign is successfully funded!

Capturing Ocean Life in Ultra Slow-Motion Video

What are currently doing on Mission 31? Here's a behind-the-scenes video diary of some of our work. We are using cutting edge technology to view ocean life like never before. We need to be fully saturated to capture these images at this depth because of the length of time required for set-up and filming in the ocean. Living at the same atmospheric pressure as the surrounding sea is a huge advantage that allows us to spend unlimited time working in the ocean. So, the research we're doing this month would take months or even years to accomplish with surface dives. That's one reason Mission 31 is so important and unique.

It's tough getting the lighting just right. Looking for grouper. Working with Matt and Fabien.

Filming critters from the window. We never rest in Aquarius! With Matt and Fabien.

Science Day & Night in Aquarius

Capturing images of plankton at night with the Edgertronic camera with help of Matt (Changing Tides Media) and BackscatterUW.

That's Liz and I capturing footage of bubbles with the Edgertronic camera.

On land, MIT's "Doc" Edgerton revolutionized how we view motion. His iconic image of a milk drop, for example, shows the coronet-shaped structure formed the instant a drop hits liquid. It's fascinating that we “see” this seemly mundane phenomenon daily, yet its true majesty is never visible to the naked eye without the incredible speed of a camera to take images at fractions of a second.

Back in the 1950s, Jacques Cousteau and Doc Edgerton ("Papa Flash," as Cousteau called him) were fast friends. Jacques was the intrepid explorer and Edgerton the MIT tech whiz who developed special technologies that helped locate, capture and convey the glory of Jacques’ underwater discoveries. Now in 2014, the 50th anniversary of Jacques Cousteau’s Conshelf II underwater habitat expidition, the legacies of these two great pioneers are united once again on Mission 31 to hopefully convey some of the wonders we're still discovering undersea by testing the limits of new underwater imaging technology.

Our work with the Edgertronic camera on Mission 31 is capturing motion previously observed, but never fully visible, similar to the milk drop coronet phenomenon. Depending on the chosen resolution, this camera is capable of 500 frames per second at high resolution, and 18,000 (eighteen thousand!) frames per second at its lowest resolution. We're attempting to capture behaviors of undersea life with this incredible technology, and hope to ultimately capture the unique feeding behavior of the Goliath grouper (video not captured with Edgertronic).

The camera is tricky to use underwater. Adequate lighting is critical for the camera because the shutter is only open for fractions of a second, and good lighting is scarce to nonexistent undersea. In addition, setup takes about a half hour of sea time, and then another of hour of shooting time with someone providing computerized feedback from the dry habitat. (Liz wrote a blog post about the set-up process required.) We could really use more time!

The videos we are capturing are amazing. We are seeing the super-fast movements of sea creatures on a whole new time scale, movements that are impossible to comprehend with the naked eye. It’s mind-blowing to me to see nature working at this level. Several days ago I posted a short video of a yellow-headed jawfish and Liz posted a video of a manits shrimp striking a goby. Hopefully we'll post more in the coming days. Someday, I'd love to frame these images and put them with the videos in a museum: The Underwater World through Edgerton's Eyes.

Jacques Cousteau and Doc Edgerton aboard Calypso, 1954.

The Edgertronic is capable of 18,000 (eighteen thousand!) frames per second at its lowest resolution. We're testing the limits of underwater imaging and reconnecting the legacies of Cousteau and Edgerton on this historic 2014 Mission 31.

Fellow aquanaut Liz Magee from Northeastern's Three Seas Program with the Edgertronic camera as we work together to capture images of sea life.

THE ARTS AT AQUARIUS, UNDERWATER BALLET

Click on image to link to the draft video.

With the Edgertronic ultra high-speed camera, we can see things that happen in the blink of an eye in slow motion. It's like seeing the world at a different time-warp. It lets us see the underwater world, and it's creatures, a whole new way. Today we spend 6 hours total in the water, and we focused on exploring with the Edgertronic camera. We captured some stunning footage. Here's a video of bubbles coming from Liz's helmet, captured at 1000 frames per second.

It's just amazing what you can discover, spending six hours in the water! Who knew bubbles moved so strangely like that? We also captured many videos of sea life, including coral cups feeding, crabs dancing (what are they doing?!), a sergeant major fanning it's eggs, and even a little zooplankton narrowly avoiding being eaten by a coral polyp. The other videos need some post-processing, but I'll distribute as soon as they're out. (And I'll post this video in a more accessible format when the internet is stronger tomorrow.)

While Fabien and Ryan re-configured the camera for us inside the habitat, we had some time to play in the water. Here I'm performing some ballet (a grand pas de chat).Matt (second photo) did a handstand.

Fellow aquanaut Matt Ferraro, a filmmaker with over 15 years in film production, has some more great footage of us working today, but you'll have to wait for that to come out in the documentary film!

Apparently, can't stop dancing. Still a ballerina at heart! Fabien snapped this pic, an arabesque, as I was grabbing something from the top shelf in Aquarius today.

Mission 31 ballet: grand pas de chat undersea

Matt doing a handstand undersea

Ballet (grand pas de chat) on land, and now sea! Art and science collide on Mission 31.

Congrats! DAY 20, LONGEST AQUARIUS MISSION

Congrats on Day 20! The longest mission at Aquarius (to date)! with Fabien, Otter and Ryan. Historic Mission 31 days, here we come!

Either I'm still on college time, or Pres. Rief is right, MIT grads are nocturnal when chasing new ideas:) The work here is exciting & exhausting. It's a great team all working together for our oceans.

G'NIGHT FOR NOW ...

I wish I had time to process (and finish downloading) the footage now to post, but I need to sleep. Tomorrow is another early morning dive. We'll spend most of the day collecting plankton samples, identifying sponges for the Ocean Genome Project, and welcoming former aquanauts Mark Patterson and Steven Price back into Aquarius.

From Liz Magee: "GIANT grouper at our viewport last night saying hello!" Did you know that Goliath Grouper can weigh up to 800 lbs and be 9 ft long!

Author

Grace Young is an MIT ocean engineer, aquanaut, and scientist/engineer with Cousteau's Mission 31. She's currently a PhD student at University of Oxford, chief scientist for the Pisces VI deepsea submarine, and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.